If I’ve learned anything in my life, ANY ONE SINGLE THING, it’s not to harbor resentment and ill will, and this can be done, with some practice and some diligence. There should be a better term for this in English-language parlance than simply ‘letting (it) go’, but then, that’s not exactly our specialty as a culture, now, is it? So I guess that will have to do. If every single moment of our lives is potentially new, then I guess we could thank the Christian tradition of confession for that, but meditation is probably better…

I used to invoke the ‘Three Times’ clause with a previous GF, so that once we repeated the same talking points three times in any given argument, then we should stop, invoke a period of silence, and come back to it the next day, if we could still remember what it was we were arguing about. We never could of course—ever. So my erstwhile GF should have loved me all the more for that little trick, right? Yeah, right…

… now read, an excellent guide to the subject with your characteristic blend of breadth, sharp focus and personal insight. In fact, you’ve inspired me to have a go tonight – the easy Maharishi version but usually slows me down effectively!

Facebook is a carnival midway, if you’re an oldster, or maybe a hippie fair, if you’re a boomer, everybody trying to sell something, mostly crap, but you never know, gotta’ get you off the pavement and into a cool room to discuss matters, like an Oriental rug merchant, sip some mint tea, and finesse that bulge in your pocket, the one that holds the money, not the one that wears the genes…

The Internet is Swiss cheese, Emmentaler, hardened and full of holes, going off in to other dimensions. FB is a 3-D medium, a surface like People magazine, all smiles and light, and an infinite number of worm-holes that you’re supposed to crawl down for a better view of the Matrix, the ads, the commercials, the dark hidden world of desire unrequited…

Likes: if you like a FaceBook post, or just want to piss on the tree to indicate you’ve been there, then firmly but gently click the ‘like’ button, indicated with a ‘thumbs up’ sign. That’s all you have to do. Like away, like all day, forget your house your spouse and your job, just sit there liking things to your heart’s content. We content providers will love you…

Share: now that is different. True, there’s a button there, very similar to the ‘like’ button, but it is in the form of an arrow, not a thumb. But there’s a bigger difference than that: it takes up space on my page, typically a large space, since most FB manipulators are much more ostentatious–and greedy with space–than I with my humble little blog here. This is especially important now, since the ‘share now’ option allows you one-click convenience, and FB’s own ads now take up half the available space… (More …)

I just joined a ‘Spiritualism’ group on Facebook last week, hoping for something more than the usual cat videos and pictures of everybody’s good ol’ granddad. It was pretty disturbing, frankly. First of all, ‘Spiritualism’ apparently not only does not include religion, but religion is outright forbidden, in fact. So I thought maybe my definition of ‘Spiritualism’ was imprecise, skewed if not screwed, but if it is, then so is theirs. They even use the term ‘ Spirituality’ interchangeably, so I definitely know what that means. Am I the only one who sees a clear connection between religion and spirituality? Duh…

Second, the leader of the group (“We are all one”) is apparently so paranoid and back-biting, that not only will he talk trash against a competing (!?) FB group (“they talk about religion—even politics”), that he will kick you out of his group if he sees that you are on theirs, too. Now that’s truly weird. That makes Scientology look positively Unitarian, if not Universalist. He makes it repeatedly clear that he can and will control the flow of info on his page in his group. If no religion is allowed, then I guess that leaves only New Age (fill-in-the-blank)…(More …)

Clickbait’: I like that word. Doesn’t that describe most of what passes for the so-called ‘social media’ these days? People are even starting to write—and talk—like HuffPost: “You won’t believe what happens next.” And then they pause—dead stop. You have to ask what happens next while looking around to see if you’re missing any important advertisements or coupon specials…

But videos are the worst. It’s no wonder advertising loves the medium. I don’t know of any official figures, but you must easily spend twice the time watching a video as you do reading the same information at your own chosen speed…

That’s the key: waste time shopping. Department stores in Thailand rearrange the whole store once a week, just to mess with your head, and make you waste time shopping–and buying. But, of course, in Thailand the ‘Psychology’ section of any bookstore is full of marketing tips. “I’m okay, you’re okay?” yeah, right. Pay in advance.

Yes, we’ve certainly advanced past the primitive days of TV, that dinosaur medium long since surpassed in the effort to see who can watch a movie on the smallest screen while acting the hippest and coolest in the process. Monetize it by multiplying it. Revolutions per minute = sales per minute, consumption of precious resources while flying through the air firing two guns simultaneously… you won’t believe what happens next…

Strolling through Facebook now is like strolling through Chinatown or along a carnival midway, complete with barkers and colored balloons, signs and advertisements now occupying every available inch of empty space, imperceptibly creeping like Capitalism into our lives and our computers and smart phones like viruses (virii?), the good kind, friendly bacteria that you can live with. In Chinatown there IS no empty space. Social media has degenerated into one big tease: “You won’t believe this!” or “You’ve got to see what happened next!” or “Don’t forget to share.” Likes are the new currency.

The best thing about Facebook, and the era it defines, is the possibility for direct honest open communication, a true communion of souls in this slow cool world of infrequent frequencies. Strong silent stuff sucks (tongue-twister: try to say that quickly four times). The worst part is the LCD effect–lowest common denominators (liquid crystal displays are okay), usually in the form of family photos (mostly good), partisan politics (mostly bad), and stupid pet tricks (enough already)….

At least FB is better than other online ‘forums’ in which people can hide behind their cute little avatars, with the resultant vicious ‘trolling’. Still I prefer Highest Common Denominators, more like that yearly (monthly? weekly? daily?) trip to the museum. I mean: we all love good art, literature, and science, right? Wouldn’t it be nice if Facebook can smarten us up, and not just dumb us down? I remain optimistic, or at least, philosophical…

Most people know where the term ‘DJ’ comes from—’disc jockey’ of course—and some of us can even remember MTV when it had actual music videos and the head-wagging self-swaggering personalities known as VJ’s—video jockeys. So what will they (we) call the self-appointed spinners of clips and quips, tunes and modern-day cryptological runes that populate our common playground and media ‘ground zero’ known as ‘FaceBook’? FJ’s? BJ’s? FBJ’s? Will this become a paid gig one day? Don’t put it past the Zucker-man in his bid to monetize the playground. It’s all fair game. I notice ads coming up now almost every time I ‘like’ anything. You would-be wannabe FBJ’s start getting your demo reel (file? down-load? flash-drive?) together. Auditions are in progress…